This One’s A Keeper: Maia’s First Person Mode

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Maia, the procedural, Dungeon Keeper-esque space management/god game from newly ex-Mode Sevener Simon Roth, is right up there in the top branches of indie games to stare at with creepily unblinking desire. A procedural world, taking a few notes from the likes of Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft, and a highly ambitious proprietary engine to realise it all in. And, now, a first person mode, straight outta Dungeon Keeper. Here’s the trippy view from behund the eyeballs of one of Maia’s IMP bots.

My eyes. My brain. My already fragile sense of reality. All endangered. But I think I like it. Here too is a look at the game’s lava simulation, from last month:

There are some more development odds and ends, including the lighting system and prospective character designs, over on the Maia site. Meantime, I really must kidnap Simon Roth and force him to talk into a microphone about his plans for this game. And, before you say it, apparently he’s never played Startopia.

There are only two Dungeon Keeper games out there; DK1 and DK2. All the rest of these Gleam clone games offer the depth of a botlecap. We won’t ever see a DK3 unless someone invents the time machine first. Bullfrog is dead, alert the media.

First person mode in this game looks almost as awful and confusing as first person mode in Dungeon Keeper. Everytime I got to the point at which I had to use it in that game, I just quit playing the game for months, sometimes a full year, even though I love a lot of FPSes and do well in them multiplayer. I hate FPS DK so much.

You can’t see it because you dont understand it. Possession wasn’t about “tactics” (And personally i find the idea that Dungeon Keeper was particularly tactical to be a bit absurd since almost every battle was a mad scrap.) It was about running around in your own dungeon, seeing your creatures up close, getting into that mad scrap, doing your own bit of exploration, and adding what little finesse could be added to such a cudgel of a battle system.

Well, the sad fact is: For all these “spiritual successors” to Dungeon Keeper or Master of Magic or whatever, none of them have been managed to be as good as the originals, despite over a decade passing since they came out.